


Dead Man's Switch

by AvocadoLove



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fuck Or Die, M/M, Technobabble, Technological Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 04:00:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvocadoLove/pseuds/AvocadoLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While working on Bucky's arm, Tony accidentally activates a booby trap intended to make the Winter Soldier kill. Luckily, Bucky knows how to distract himself from his order.</p>
<p>(WinterIron Holiday Exchange fic for TrickyArchAngel (Valmasy))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Man's Switch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valmasy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmasy/gifts).
  * Translation into Polski available: [Dead Man's Switch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376620) by [Hiddlesconda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiddlesconda/pseuds/Hiddlesconda)



> Happy Holidays, Tricky! You mentioned you wanted a fic with Tony working on Bucky's arm, and sexytimes. I figure, why not both? :D

"Relax," Tony said. "I'm a professional. You're in my care. These hands," he held them up, "are worth more than--"

"Than I can shake a stick at?" Bucky guessed, with a half smile pulling at his lips.

Tony grinned and picked up a screwdriver. He had a host of tools spread on the work bench beside him, but he figured starting with something simple and familiar would put Bucky more at ease.

The other man looked good sitting in his workshop. A little nervous about the impending work done to his cybernetic arm, perhaps, but good. With his shirt off, and jeans that had taken a cue from Steve Rogers school of clothes fitting.

"A big stick," Tony said. "The point is, this isn't going to hurt a bit."

Bucky cocked an eyebrow at him, but despite that his skin still looked clammy. He was nervous, and trying to hide it well. "Not afraid of pain, Stark."

"Sure, but I say it's best to be avoided." He gestured for Bucky to lean back, and helped prop the metallic arm so it was under the light. "FRIDAY, increase illumination by ten percent. Ah, there we go." He bent the screwdriver to the panel needed, and began to carefully pry upward.

Tony had not-so-secretly been lusting after the arm (and yes, the person attached it it) since a skittish Bucky Barnes had followed Steve Rogers into Avengers tower a few months ago. As Bucky had healed, under Sam's care and Steve's mother-Henning, he'd lost the permanently frightened overwhelmed waif look, and had instead become a bit of an asshole.

Tony was--well--not in love, but definitely in like. Strong like.

He'd nearly jumped at the chance to help when the arm had acted up. It started with little things: Bucky crushing wine glasses when he'd meant to hold them, fingers twitching now and again, as if he had a mental tick, false crawling sensations running across metallic 'skin'. Tony suspected that the servos and nano-gears that surely helped power the device needed cleaning. And, well, he was the resident tech genius. This was his gig.

And if he could get the man's shirt off, all the better.

He'd talked Barnes into the workshop, and even now he wasn't sure where his gaze wanted to stray. The gorgeous technology in front of him, or the gorgeous man. Tony had always considered himself greedy. He wanted both.

It was little work to find the coverings and unscrew the proper places that allowed him to pry up the metallic scales. FRIDAY's scans had a hard time penetrating the alloys used to cover the arm -- they were as good as a shield-- so Tony wasn't expecting the level and complexity of the advanced electronics hidden just inside.

"Huh. That's odd," he said, carefully moving one wire to the side to examine it.

Bucky didn't reply. He had fallen silent. In hindsight, that should have really tipped Tony off that something wasn't right here, but he was sort of distracted.

He became less so when he poked one of the really advanced circuit boards with a screwdriver. There was actually a visible... energy pulsing through the arm. Tony wondered at the power output to the thing. Surely, it wasn't working from the body's electrical impulses. There had to be a tertiary power source embedded somewhere--

He'd just touched the tip of the circuit board with his screwdriver when the arm jerked under him. Bucky twisted and with one fluid movement, grabbed Tony's neck with his metallic hand.

"Nyet!" Bucky snarled.

Tony made a wheezing gasp. He thought, ' _He's having a flashback_ ,' but his eyes jerked to Bucky's and there was... nothing in there. No rage or fear. Just a blank doll's gaze.  

With a surge of super solider strength, Bucky shoved Tony around and down, slamming his shoulders and back against the table. "Nyet," Bucky repeated, "Nyet, nyet, nyet."

The fingers clamped tight around his throat. Tony could still breathe, but it was like trying to suck through a kinked straw. He coughed, pounded on the arm.

Tony's workshop was of organized chaos. One of the Iron Man gauntlets sat not too far away. If Tony reached with his free hand, he might just be able to grab it. But then... what? Tony couldn't control the strength of the repulser blast without the HUD -- it would default at full power and Bucky was completely unprotected. He wasn't even wearing a shirt.

Bucky's finger's dug in, cutting off the little bit of air Tony had. He wheezed, and looked again into Bucky's eyes.

_Please_ , he thought. _Don't make me grab for the gauntlet._

Something flickered within Bucky's blank gaze. Almost like hesitation.

Tony don't know what made him do it -- what made him think of it. He was greedy, and yes, impulsive. He just didn't want to kill Bucky. He didn't want to hurt him. Their faces were only inches apart.

In a jerk, Tony closed the distance between them and kissed him.

He half expected his throat to be crushed the second it happened. But Bucky didn't move.

Then his lips slackened against Tony's, softening into the touch.

The fingers clamped around his neck loosened just enough for Tony to wheeze in a breath of air around Bucky's lips. Then Bucky tilted his head and kissed him hard: all tongue and teeth. Tony's poor oxygen starved brain wasn't sure whether it was hot or alarming that he'd suddenly become more aggressive. But the fingers loosened another fraction of an inch.

Then Bucky spoke in English. "I want to kill you." Soft, like words to a lover.

Tony nearly choked.

"I don't want to kill you." Bucky said, not making much sense. "There's something trying to make me..." He licked his bottom lip. "But if I'm distracted..."

_Dead man's switch_ , Tony realized suddenly. And had he not been half-expecting to die at any moment, he would have slapped his own forehead.

Of course there were booby traps embedded in the arm. He'd expected some sort of explosive material, but Bucky had been HYDRA's asset, hadn't he? The arm was advanced enough to interact with the neurons in his brain. It wouldn't take that much more to instruct the Asset to kill whichever unlucky tech who had gone poking around without permission.

Bucky was being instructed to kill. He was fighting it by distracting himself. By sex.

Tony shivered and the hand around his throat tightened ever so slightly before slackening again.

Meeting Bucky's eyes, Tony croaked, "By all means. Distract yourself."

Bucky made a low, throaty noise and kissed Tony. Harder. He tasted like cinnamon, and Tony gave as much as he was getting. The fingers slowly, fractionally loosened a little more. Daringly, Tony leaned up into Bucky's space, trying to give him contact with his body. His free hand pulled the metallic fingers away from his own neck and guided them down to rest loosely against his false sternum.

He felt more than heard Bucky's gasp. It wasn't visible, and wasn't exactly well known (but Tony suspected Bucky knew anyway) that while the arc reactor had been removed, the bone couldn't be regrown. Technology could only aid so much, and bone graphs were tricky with adults. So Tony had a weak spot there -- a point where metal fingers could easily punch through into his chest cavity.

"Tony..." Bucky's voice came out with a tremble.

"Shh. It's okay, babe. Just keep doing what you're doing. I got you." Tony tipped his head, let Bucky kiss under his chin, suck at the skin there. But with Bucky's arm moved down, Tony was at a better angle to work on it. Those few inches were everything.

It was... a little odd. Bucky going at his neck in a way that would make any middle schooler proud, him, curving into the touches while arched with screwdriver in hand, desperately working on the arm. If he could find and disable the circuitry operating the dead man's switch...

Bucky pushed Tony flat on his back again, then crawled between Tony's knees. He kissed down his ribs, flesh hand fluttering to Tony's belt.

Distracted, Tony closed his eyes for a moment. His poor, confused libido sent him mixed signals. "If you're thinking what I'm think you're thinking..."

Bucky was panting. He sent him one wild-eyed look. His metallic fingers twitched as he lost focus.

Tony was hard pressed (ha!) to remember when he'd gotten a blow job in stranger circumstances. But between concentration on the arm, and the distracted way Bucky mouthed against his still clothed erection, he couldn't be assed to bother.

"Hand up here," he ordered, catching the metal wrist to keep it still while he desperately pried up another panel.

Bucky licked his lips, nodded, and bent down to unzip Tony's jeans.

Tony let out an involuntary moan as Bucky's lips kissed the tip of his erection, then encircled his head. His moan turned into a low laugh, earning a glance up from Bucky.

"Nothing! I'm almost there." In more ways than one. He shifted his hips up, and Bucky went down, tongue fluttering over and around him.

Tony knew he was sweating as much as Bucky had been eerier. He explored almost desperately in the outstretched metal arm. He wanted to lose himself in this, but he couldn't. He--aha!

Then Tony found the switch he'd been looking for at last, with a twist and a pop, disabled it.

Bucky's arm, his entire shoulder sagged as the power was cut. Immediately, he pulled off Tony, lips cherry red, and panting.

"Better?" Tony asked. "Urge to kill fading?"

"You tell me." Bucky crawled back up and kissed him. Without the lingering threat of death, the kiss was that much sweeter.

Finally free to be a full participant, Tony tossed away the screwdriver. It landed somewhere on the other side of the workshop, but Tony was too busy unzipping Bucky's jeans to care.

 

****

 

Later, naked and sated on the work table, Bucky traced the swollen skin around Tony's neck in apology.

"It's nothing," Tony said. "It's the past. Forget it."

"'S'not nothing."

"You didn't crush my windpipe. That's a win." He poked at the arm, still laying limp around Tony's waist. Bucky was apparently still getting sensations from it, but wouldn't be able to move it until Tony replaced the power source he'd disconnected. "This won't take long to fix," he promised. "I had some ideas."

For the first time, Bucky looked slightly offended. "If you were getting big ideas while we were doing what we were doing, I wasn't doing my job properly."

Tony flashed a smile and waved the objection away. "Some of my best ideas were sprung from orgasms. It's a fact."

In reply, Bucky shifted, grabbing up Tony's wrists in his working hand and pinning them lightly over his head. "Hope you're ready to come up with something spectacular, sweetheart. 'Cause you ain't seen nothing yet."


End file.
